Praise
“Hollywood” is more than just a neighborhood in Los Angeles. It is synonymous with illusion, facade, easy solutions to conflicts, and happy endings for troubled relationships. Growing up as the son of a famous television actor, Robert Crane (and his family) occasionally took part in reinforcing the deceptions of the Dream Factory. Now, with his brief memoir My (UnHollywood)Family, Crane, a veteran journalist, provides an unvarnished, straightforward account of his family over the last seventy-five years that reveals greater similarities with far more of us in the post-war era than any Hollywood contrivance.
~Andrew Erish, author of Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood and Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio
This intelligently written memoir about a painful upbringing in the margins of storied Hollywood will touch the hearts of many a reader. Passion, glitter, and, ultimately, heartbreak, propel Crane’s account of growing up in the shadow of parental self-absorption.
~Suzy Vitello, author of Bitterroot
They’re nameless until the final pages of Robert Crane’s My (UnHollywood) Family, but we get it early on: this is the tale of the talented extrovert we’ve come to know as television’s “Hogan’s Heroes” star Bob Crane and the tangled trail of wives and children he left behind when he was brutally murdered in 1978. The author, son of the TV star, lays it all out there—from his dad’s sex addiction, his deer-in-the-headlights mother and “Nazi, with breasts” stepmother to the loving real estate agent stepfather who “saved” the family. An unblinking probe of family skeletons, Crane’s compelling tale yet brims with love. Well, except for the stepmother.
~Joseph B. Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood’s Zen Rebel
Robert Crane has led an extraordinary life in and around the glittering cauldron better known as Hollywood. He’s told the tale of his less than typical upbringing in various venues, but never quite so powerfully or with such raw intensity as he has in his all-too-real, dark family story, “My UnHollywood Family.” Robert’s fascinating deep dive into the many challenges he faced growing up as the son of the popular but troubled TV star, Bob Crane, better known to millions as Col. Hogan in “Hogan’s Heroes,” is as well-written as it is truly unnerving. Robert takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster through his and his family’s many difficult experiences, not the least of which being Bob Crane’s brutal, untimely demise in Scottsdale, Arizona. “My UnHollywood Family” traverses the rocky shoals of Robert’s familial relationships and the lifelong impact his larger-than-life father had on him, his Mother, and siblings. Fortunately, he found his way through it all to become a respected interviewer and outstanding writer. It’s our good fortune that Robert Crane is able to translate so much personal heartache and trauma into a work that is such an eminently accessible great read.
~Steve Cuden, host of the StoryBeat Podcast
Robert David Crane stands emotionally naked for all the world to see in his latest book, My UnHollywood Family in which we get to meet the branches of the family tree that weren’t on TV, radio, tabloid cover pages or found bludgeoned to death. As his father, Bob Crane did during his meteoric rise in the 1960s entertainment world, Robert David Crane, similarly, in his memoir-ish tone, shoots from the hip, off the cuff, no script, in a total stream of consciousness. The difference between his father’s shtick and Robert’s is the difference between comedy and tragedy. Bob Crane made us laugh, until he didn’t. Robert David Crane makes us weep, until... Closure? Read My UnHollywood Family if you really want to know where you came from, what you’re made of and how you will handle the thing that is just one untimely phone call away.
~Joe Coyle, Writer, Actor, Producer
It’s clear that Bob Crane’s upbringing was not your typical first generation Baby Boomer model, but then, every family has their own story. I want to know how he made it out in one piece. Crane is obviously a keen observer with a great memory. He takes on the institution of marriage and anguishes over a father who never really grew up, and parents that dared not express their true feelings. I think we all can connect with pieces of how he and his sisters waded through this minefield, but Crane interjects just the right amount of humor to make this journey entertaining. Oh, and I think the stepmom was capable of anything, including murder.
~John Cerney, large-scale artist
~Theresa Griffin Kennedy
"My UnHollywood Family," will be available for preorder, via Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and wherever books are sold.